Rough Start

I’ll have to admit I haven’t done very well so far. I’ve only been successful 6.5 out of 10 days.

As an excuse, I was on vacation (a cross-country road trip to California) for the first 4 days, so I was pretty proud of myself that I even attempted waking up at 5am while out of town. For the first 3 days, I had some long days driving and sight-seeing, didn’t do a good job of going to bed early, and was dealing with time changes, but still managed to get up at 5am each day. However, none of those days were satisfying or enjoyable at all, because I spent my early morning hours in a dark hotel room trying not to wake my friend and just catching up on work emails. I was in California by Day 4 but accidentally overslept (I woke up at 6:30am and went out for a run).

I was home by Day 5 and committed to the idea of getting up at 5am after failing on Day 4. But I didn’t get home from the airport until 1:15am the night before. So when my alarm rang at 5am, I had an epiphany. The purpose of this experimonth, in my opinion, is to see if you can alter your daily routine to become an early riser. The point is not to torture yourself with sleep deprivation. Needless to say, I reset my alarm for a later time that morning. I did get up at 5am on Day 6 (a Saturday!) but then opted to sleep in on Day 7 to try to catch up on sleep from my road trip.

One unexpected and disappointing thing I have figured out this week is that it doesn’t feel like I’m really gaining time in the morning. I have been going out for longer-than-normal runs as soon as I get up in the morning, and then still find myself rushing through breakfast and my shower to get to the office on time. My goal is to use the extra time in the morning (can it really be considered “extra” time in the morning if you are losing hours to get things done at night by going to bed early?) for exercise, because getting up and moving right away is what helps me feel awake and energized. I’d also like to be able to have some relaxing time to drink coffee, watch the news or read the paper, and enjoy the quiet time in the morning before my day gets too hectic, but that’s what I seem to be running out of time for so far.

I’m determined to make this schedule work for me by the end of the month…I have 20 more days to get used to it!